


A Dawn Confessional

by SBambs



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Brief allusion to sex, F/M, Light Angst, Oneshot, back at it again with the friends with benefits (are you seeing a trend in my writing yet?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBambs/pseuds/SBambs
Summary: Jason had caught feelings for his partner. Irresponsible feelings. And the only time he can bring himself to talk to her about them is when she's still wading deep within the throes of sleep.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Female Reader, Jason Todd/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	A Dawn Confessional

It started out as just sex. That’s how Jason interpreted it, and that’s how she did, too. They were just two friends in a hectic work environment (understatement of the millennium) who weren’t in any need for an actual relationship but still needed physical intimacy to blow off some steam.

Yes, it had started out as just sex. But then Jason had to go and fuck everything up by catching feelings.

That’s how he got there. Awake in the early hours of the morning, with dawn’s soft blue light the only other witness to his pure adoration of her—not even the sun could see the love in his eyes as he gazed over her face, softened by sleep.

Three months ago was when they started this whole mess. It had been perfect in every sense of the word, because amidst stressful world-ending events, when crime lulled and he needed the illusion of normalcy, she was there, dealing with the same devastating problems and needing the same selfish desires as he did. She always welcomed him, and he always welcomed her, and they just sort of clicked into place.

They’d always been good friends, good colleagues. There had always been respect between them. Trust, too.

If he was particularly upset at Bruce or Dick again and had run off to stew by himself, she always followed and sat by his side. She didn’t offer advice about shit she didn’t know, though; no, instead she just rested with him, their shoulders barely brushing as he tried to rein in his temper and breathing.

And if he smoked, she never chastised him about it, instead asking for one for herself even though he knew she didn’t normally didn’t partake. She’d crack a joke about how they ought to meet Death together, and he felt strangely better knowing she meant it—he’d died alone once before, so the thought of walking back to it hand in hand with someone else was, well, morbidly comforting. She didn’t need words to tell him she cared about him like family like that. It was stupid and terrible of him, but he liked that about her.

She had already known him better than he knew himself, so of course he trusted her enough to have sex with her. They were emotionally intimate with each other, so why not be physically intimate, too? She always respected him, something that carried over into the sex. Even in their most heated encounters, she always touched him so softly, was always mindful of his scars and gentle with her lips.

He almost wished she hadn’t been so sweet to him. Maybe then he wouldn’t be stuck neck-deep in his current predicament.

Because now, he was tangled in her embrace with her sheets around them both. Everything from the pillow he rested his head on to the covers draped over him smelled like her. Jason was lost to her, and he didn’t ever want to be found if it meant waking up with her next to him for even one more day.

He traced hearts over her shoulder. Her silky skin beneath his calloused palms felt like heaven—when he focused on one of the beauty marks dotting her neck, Jason had to fight the urge to peck it, along with all of its other dotted cousins.

Just sex. They had agreed that this would be as professional as any other business transaction. They had agreed that no feelings other than their previous rapport would be involved.

Yeah, like that was possible. Jason didn’t believe in fate in the slightest, but he knew that he was destined to fall for her no matter what promises were made. He was an idiot for ever thinking otherwise.

The sky had lightened from the last time he glanced out. He was too focused on her beauty and on his own idiocy to notice that time was passing; soon, she’d wake up, and they’d have to part ways until their next meeting, and Jason would be left alone, just wanting and needing and loving her while she probably didn’t even think about him.

Bitter bile rose in his throat and his gut clenched at the thought. He didn’t mind loving her and he understood why she wouldn’t ever reciprocate, and yet it killed him all the same.

Jason tightened his arms around her like that would keep her with him forever, like that would make her _love_ him. He swallowed thickly, his fingers continuing their loopy paths over her body, albeit with more hesitance. His lips found her brow, and he kissed her there as softly as he could.

Absentmindedly, one of his hands smoothed over the nape of her neck. He buried his nose in it, breathing in the sweet smell of her shampoo that rubbed off there.

One day, he’d have to let her go, and that meant one day, he’d hold her in his arms for the last time and smell her lovely scent for the last time, too. She’d go to someone else, someone who could give her everything she needed and someone who wasn’t as fucked up as he was; Jason’s mouth twisted into a frown when he thought of giving her up.

He wanted to kiss every patch of skin on her body; he wanted to go to bed with her in his arms and wake up that way, too; he wanted to hear her laugh late into the night; he wanted to watch shitty movies with her; he wanted brunch dates and drives out into the country and late mornings and dinner in his apartment and Christ, he just wanted _her_.

Just sex. Just sex. _Just sex_.

She had to know by now that it wasn’t just sex to him anymore. Last night, he had kissed her body so sweetly, had worshipped her heat several times over with his mouth, had lovingly trailed his hands over her skin to feel every precious inch, had thrust into her so slowly he knew he was making love instead, had moaned her name with a tenderness he never knew he could have when he finally came undone. There was no way she couldn’t have felt the untainted love in every single one of his actions.

He grit his jaw. The sun had finally broken free from the black horizon. 6 a.m.; in some thirty minutes her alarm would sound and she’d go on with her life like they were just friends.

That was how it always went; she’d be the first to pull herself from their intimate embrace, and she’d offer to make breakfast though Jason would always insist he did it instead, and she’d sit down with him for twenty minutes of their usual friendly banter over cereal or whatever they’d decided on, and then she’d get ready when he was still in his boxers, and then she’d just _go_ with nothing more than a knowing grin and brief ‘Goodbye,’ and then Jason was alone.

‘ _Don’t leave me_ ’s and ‘ _I need you_ ’s and ‘ _I love you_ ’s bubbled up in the back of his throat—he needed to tell her, to at least get the stupid, dirty, godforsaken words out of his system before they actually tore him apart.

“Hey,” Jason whispered, his fingers rubbing her waist and his lips skimming her jaw. His voice shook. “Hey, are you awake?”

No answer. Just her even breathing amidst the honeyed light. Jason gulped.

He kissed her cheek lightly, careful not to stir her in the action. He waited a minute, then another, then another one after that. Jason wanted to memorize her face like this: delicate, soft, and warm, like everything in the world was perfect and like they were safe to love each other.

His chest ached for that. It ached for her.

As quietly as he could, so that the syllables were barely audible even amidst the still air, Jason murmured into her ear, “I’m in love with you.”

Only her steady breaths responded to his confession.


End file.
